Hypnic Twitches
by Lex Munro
Summary: Cable & Deadpool fic. Set before the Dreams of the Waking Man. In an alternate future, Wade must plot to kill Stryfe so that Hope will be safe. Nate/Wade pairing with some Stryfe/Wade. Warnings: AU, mild gore, violence, language, and character death.
1. Quartermaster

Wade's story, continuing from Lost & Found. the first step in creating a Wade Wilson who could cut off Stryfe's head and repair Nate's broken timeslide module.

**warnings:** slash. goofiness. mild angst. the future au in which this and **Lost & Found** takes place will be called Earth-339 from now on (*shrug* it wasn't taken). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus s***).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade (Cable/Deadpool, for those just joining us), Stryfe/Wade.

**timeline:** it starts around 500 years after Stryfe takes Wade from the rubble in Lost & Found. perhaps it would be better to say it starts about 20 years from the time Nate and Hope land from their timeslide malfunction.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) a hypnic twitch (or hypnic jerk) is a myoclonic spasm that occurs on the verge of sleep, usually full-body and often accompanied by the sensation of falling. they occur frequently in people who have irregular sleep schedules or irregular circadian rhythms. 2) a quartermaster is in charge of keeping stock of weapons, armor, supplies, and transport. in the James Bond novels, the quartermaster oversees the tech lab and is known as Q. 3) if you had a 'timeline resonance extrapolator,' what would _you_ call it? i know i'd call _mine_ a magic eight-ball. timeline resonance extrapolator...Q is such a big fat liar.

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><p><strong>Quartermaster<strong>

Wade wanders.

Yes, Stryfe has food synthesizers. Yes, Stryfe is physically almost identical to Nate (maybe a little creepier at the edges of the smirks). Yes, Stryfe lets him kill or maim whatever he wants.

None of that changes the lack of television, books, music, and games in Stryfe's fortress.

So, when Wade's boredom gets the best of him and Stryfe refuses to amuse him with bedroom antics (because apparently ruling the world with an iron fist involves a surprising amount of work), Wade wanders.

Time has no meaning, so it doesn't matter to Wade how long it takes to make a perfect mental map while he wanders.

He knows every bump and hollow of the foothills around the fortress. He can navigate the remains of the city within a radius of about ten miles, above and below ground. He knows that the nearest rebel patrols are at least twenty miles distant—maybe that's why Stryfe doesn't really care how far he ranges into the ruins. In any case, the ruins are pretty boring compared to the labyrinthine architecture at work inside the fortress.

He found the main power generator. He found the water recycler. He found something that probably used to be a dungeon (empty now). He found the various mutants hooked up to machines to serve as the fortress' main defense system. He found the barracks, where surprisingly normal guys were polishing up their boots to do Stryfe's bidding.

The first time he finds the armory, he feels like a kid in a candy store.

There are rows upon rows of guns, knives, swords, and gizmos sealed behind clear panels, shiny and cool-looking and _begging_ to be used.

"Toys!" Wade shrieks with childish glee, and runs at something big and impressive.

_~Unauthorized presence detected,~_ booms a loud computerized voice overhead.

The lights in the room turn red, a siren starts to go off, and metal shutters slam down over all the cool gadgets.

_~How have you gained access to this room?~_

Wade looks around, but nobody's there. "I walked in the door?" he tries.

_~We were not informed of any new personnel being added to the rosters. What is your name?~_

"Wade Wilson. Why? What's yours?"

There's a pause. _~We are the Quartermaster.~_

Wade frowns. "Are you plural or singular? Make up your mind…"

_~We are a collective. We…were not always thus.~_

"Yeah, I kinda got that impression," Wade mutters. "Can we knock off the red alert thing, Q?"

The lights flick back to white and the siren stops, but the shutters stay closed.

Wade plops down in the middle of the floor. "So. Let's hear it."

_~We do not understand. Hear what?~_

"Your story," Wade says, waving a hand. "You can't just say something like 'we were not always thus' and then not say what you _were_ like however-long-ago. Who were you _before_?"

_~We…we were several. Our name was Anthony Stark, and they killed Steve to get to us. Our name was Reed Richards, and they threatened our children. Our name was Henry Pym, and they drugged us. Our name was Henry McCoy, and they took us while we were sleeping. Our name was Jack Hammer, and they got us while we were shopping for groceries. Our name was Forge, and we were betrayed by Lucas Bishop.~_

"Weasel, ol' buddy!" Wade cries happily. "I wondered what happened to you. God, that was…what, like…like a _thousand years ago_ or something, right? Nah, longer than that… Wow, so you're a genius-in-a-box now?"

_~We are many geniuses, and our hardware is a quantum canister.~_

"Right."

_~Stryfe took us from our native time and forced us to computerize one another. Now we make and dispense weapons and armor for his troops.~_

"Bummer."

_~You…sympathize?~_

Wade waves a hand. "Sure. I mean, Stryfe's hot 'n all, but the more I get to know him, the more of an egotistical jerk he turns out to be. Plus, I was sorta thinking of trying to save the world before he offered cookies. Just…y'know, it seemed like the kinda thing Nate would want," he finishes awkwardly. Suddenly, he doesn't feel quite so cheerful anymore.

_~Would you be willing to…do us a favor?~_

"Is this some kinda test?" he asks, looking around at the ceiling. "Stryfe? Honey, I thought you said you were too busy to play today."

_~We are not Stryfe. We are the Quartermaster. Stryfe is in his chambers, coordinating a strike against pocket resistence in gridsquare 13C.~_

Wade thinks about that for a few seconds. "Not that I'm saying I'll do it or nothin'…but what kinda favor are we talking about?"

There's another long pause.

_~Kill Stryfe,~_ says the digital voice.

Wade laughs for two whole minutes. When he catches his breath again, he waves a hand over his head. "You've gotta be kidding. I've read the fanfics. I know how this kinda thing turns out—it's always a trap."

_~Your mind, like ours, is not open to Stryfe's view. However, you possess an ambulatory physical form. We are isolated and do not possess the proper controls to cause direct harm to Stryfe. We can give you tools to make your task easier.~_

"Uh-huh. Sure you can. And the second I try to use one, everyone will pop out from behind the furniture and yell 'surprise.' Only instead of 'surprise,' it'll be 'kill the traitor.' And really, why would I kill Stryfe? He's a real prick sometimes, sure, but he sorta-kinda knows me, and he's good in bed, and he gives me cookies." And he looks _so much_ like Nate…but Wade doesn't mention that part, because he still has a little pride left somewhere.

Another pause from Quartermaster.

Wade feels he's made a pretty good argument. Let whoever is behind the curtain chew on _that_ one and try to figure out whether he's harboring seditious sentiments.

_~You must realize that Stryfe's good treatment of you will not last. The only reason for him to have brought you here is to keep you under observation. More than likely, he is trying to find a way to kill you.~_

Wade laughs for another minute and a half. "Well, good luck to him. Nobody's found a way yet, and I spent fifty years trying after Nate d—" He stops laughing. It's been more than a thousand years, and he still can't say it out loud.

_~What about Hope?~_

"What about it?" Wade drawls, already getting bored with the conversation.

_~Not it. Her.~_

Red hair, green eyes, happy smiles, laughter.

Old loneliness returns, almost smothers him.

She was seventeen, head held high, when she loaded Nate's old plasma pistol and pre-programmed the timeslide module. _I'm going on ahead,_ she said, so brave… _Wait for me, okay? And take care of Nathan._ And he promised that he would.

She'd long since jumped forward when Nate died—thank _god_, because Wade still doesn't know how he's going to break that news to her when she gets back.

Gets back.

He jumps to his feet. "What year is it?"

_~It has been three thousand, nine hundred, and six years since the birth of Christ.~_

"Stryfe's been in charge for eight hundred years?"

_~Seven hundred and forty-two.~_

He's been Stryfe's pet killer for more than five and a half centuries. What a monument to boredom.

"Well…_shit_." He starts pacing. "There's only about fifty years before Hope's supposed to land, and Stryfe needs to be, like, _gone_ before that…" He claps his hands to his head. "Oh noes, Q, I only have fifty years to come up with something, and I suck with plans!"

_~Much less than that, if our calculations are correct—and they always are. Take this.~_

A drawer on one wall hisses open. Inside is a little canister with a pill in it.

"What is it?" Wade asks, because he saw the Matrix and doesn't believe in swallowing strange pills.

_~It contains a nanomite compound that will, in a way, reinforce any telepathic shielding you may already possess. It will ensure that Stryfe does not see or suspect any plots against him on your part.~_

"What if you're lying?"

_~We are no longer capable of lying; only redirecting attention and refusing to answer queries.~_

"So if Stryfe asked if we were planning to kill him, you couldn't say no?"

_~We would reply that the Quartermaster is physically incapable of causing Stryfe harm or reading your thoughts. Stryfe can be remarkably narrow-minded in his complacency, and we are experienced in composing evasive responses.~_

Wade nods. "Good answer."

Oh, well. What the hell, right? It's not like he has anything to lose by acting, and Q definitely has Weasel's brain in there somewhere, to know when Hope is going to arrive. He opens the little canister and takes the pill. He waits to see if anything is going to explode.

Unconsciously, he starts to move his fingers. It's an old pattern, comfortable—something his hand just does when there's nothing else to do. It's a lot more impressive with a knife in his hand.

_~The nanomites are functioning as designed.~_

"Cool beans."

_~We have been working on some small side projects that will aid you; they should be completed within the decade. Do not let impatience cause you to act prematurely.~_

"They make a pill for that, too," Wade quips.

When Wade wanders back to Stryfe's side, the conquerer doesn't ask him where he's been or what he's been doing. Typical.

Wade finishes exploring the rest of the fortress before he returns to the armory. It takes a year.

_~Organic presence detected—welcome, Wade Wilson.~_

"Any explosive ballpoints, Q?"

The computer seems perplexed for a moment.

_~The significance of your query eludes us.~_

Wade arches an eyebrow. "Wow, half a dozen geniuses in there and you're confused by a reference to James Bond?"

_~Ah. James Bond. Ian Fleming. Espionage fantasy. We recall, now. We cannot give you weapons, Wade. Only tools.~_

"But I have a tool. He's seven feet tall, full of himself, and secretly likes to cuddle."

After a brief pause, Quartermaster goes on as though Wade hasn't said anything. _~However, even tools can be used for destruction. In this case, we present a stealth module. It is significantly superior to the stealth modules currently in use by Stryfe's forces, as it includes an optical camouflage element in addition to usual radar, thermal, and electronic masking. Be aware that rapid movement will compromise the effectiveness of the optical camouflage.~_

A new drawer opens, and Wade finds a dime-sized black disk within.

_~Simply tap it twice to activate stealth systems. We suggest applying it in an unobtrusive location where it will not be unintentionally activated. Perhaps the collar, or the inside of the wrist.~_

So he puts it on his collar (it sticks to his suit like a magnet) and moves his head around to make sure it's going to stay put.

_~We will require a genetic sample in order to proceed with our other projects.~_

"Uh, how _big_ a genetic sample?"

_~Hold out your hand.~_

He notes a lot of evasion in that response. "Are you fixing to take a finger or something?"

A mechanical arm extends from the wall with a sharp-looking pair of shears on it. _~It will grow back. This is for the sake of the greater good.~_

"Yeah, because the 'greater good' always did so much for me…"

_~Do not be such a baby, Wade.~_ The arm stretches forward some more, and the shears go _snip-snip_.

Yeah, Weasel is definitely in there somewhere.

"You're enjoying this too much," Wade accuses, but holds out his pinky.

It stings like a bitch when the shears clamp down (and Wade says so), but it's over pretty quickly. His finger takes five minutes to grow back, and he complains the whole time.

It's another three years of visiting Quartermaster and the armory before the next cool toy is done, and Stryfe has already begun thoroughly and methodically experimenting with Wade's healing factor (when he protests, Stryfe just tells him to shut up). It turns out to be a nanomite boost to his healing factor—a hefty insurance policy that will keep Stryfe from being able to kill Wade by frying his brain or ripping off his head (or other equally extreme measures).

Wade appreciates the timing.

By this point, Wade likes to think he's made friends with the Geniuses-in-a-Canister. Quartermaster teaches him the important languages he's missed by being trapped under a skyscraper, teaches him about the Stryfe's technology, teaches him about timestream theory and quantum resonance and timeline collision. He remembers with abrupt clarity that Hope told him she and Nate hadn't been able to return to the past (present, whatever) because Nate's timeslide module was broken, and he has Quartermaster teach him everything he needs to know to fix it.

One day, eight years after Wade first found the armory, Quartermaster interrupts a lesson on the telemetry circuit of a timeslide module to say, _~Ah. It is finished.~_

A new drawer hisses open. Inside is a perfectly transparent sphere about the size of a baseball. When Wade picks it up, he finds it to be heavy…made of glass or crystal, maybe. "What is it?" he asks, because of narrative convention.

_~Let us call it a timeline resonance extrapolator. In simplest terms, it is a catalog of the timestream and its myriad branches and bundles. When given a subject, a date of interest, and a query, it can predict the results with a high level of accuracy.~_

Wade wiggles a hand. "Didn't that…kinda sorta not work out when Richards tried it before?"

_~That equation model was flawed, and we failed to anticipate the auxiliary ramifications of certain specific actions. Now, with the aid of timestream analysis and sliding technology, we are able to work the equation far more effectively. The timeline resonance extrapolator makes its predictions based upon timestream bundle comparison and statistical analysis thereof.~_

Wade stares at the thing, holds it up to the light. "If you say so, Q. How do I make the magic eight-ball work?"

_~The timeline resonance extrapolator is keyed to your genetic code and is capable of detecting biorhythmic information. This will not prevent other instances of you from using it, but will prevent it from being used unless it is being actively and willingly held by you.~_

"Other instances? So, if some other Wade managed to go dimension-hopping, he could use it, too?"

_~Or timesliding. If he or she knew how to activate it or was incredibly lucky, yes.~_

"Okay. But how do I turn it on?"

Quartermaster tells him. Twice. And then gives him a step-by-step.

Finally, the thing lights up brightly. _~Access granted,~_ it says. _~Please input extrapolation parameters.~_

Wade thinks for a little bit. "When will Hope arrive in this timeline?"

Little lights dance through the middle of the sphere. _~Please specify range of extrapolation.~_

_~It wants to know how far forward to look,~_ Quartermaster says helpfully.

"Within the next fifty years," Wade tells the crystal ball.

It blinks twice. _~For the specified range, there are three approximate dates of potential time branch intersection.~_

All right, so the thing is damn literal.

"Aaaand what's the earliest?"

_~The earliest point at which a subject designation of Hope arrives in the current timeline is approximately seven years from now.~_

That takes Wade by surprise. "Does she arrive with anybody?"

_~In 91% of branches, subject designate Hope WM338 is accompanied by subject designate Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma.~_

Okay. Seven years is plenty of time to finish learning how to fix Nate's timesliding module.

And figure out how to ask the magic eight-ball how to kill Stryfe.

…And then figure out what the hell its answer means.

**.End.**


	2. Outlook Not Good

after years of questions and probabilities, Wade stumbles on the beginnings of a plan.

**warnings:** slash. goofiness. mild angst. blood-n-guts. reference to torture and human experimentation. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers for parts of Deadpool and for Messiah War. language: pg (primetime tv).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade.

**timeline:** 3921, six months before Nate and Hope arrive.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) the interwoven timeline may or may not be important to you guys, but i'll lay it out for you just in case. when **Nate and Hope** timeslide at the end of Messiah War, they're leaving New York City, 2973, unknown future timeline. in the Waking Man series, a malfunction pops them into 3358 in a different timeline. they're about to arrive in 3922 of Earth-339. **Dom and X-Force** of Earth-339 jump under very similar circumstances to their Earth-616 counterparts; they just jump farther forward and *after* they'd rescued Julian and Tabby from their respective horrible icky plights. **Wade** of Earth-339 is the only character to have time continuity; he's never jumped forward or backward. 2) it's incredibly hard to look at a character like Stryfe and say "okay, let's make him MOAR EVIL!" so i like to make him evil in a different and possibly more colorful way. then again, young!Stryfe is hot enough to tempt me to make Stryfe _less_ evil...ah, well. it's too late, Wade already lopped his head off. we already know that part, and we're just working our way back to it. 3) i have a feeling that only one of you will know which Stephen Lynch song i was thinking of when Wade starts whistling to himself. 4) yeah, Josh is really MADE for the role of Pestilence. if Apocalypse could look at every timeline and pick and choose his Dream Team, he would totally have Josh for Pestilence. 5) feel free to ignore the subject designations. but for those of you who are really nerdy, they may be important later. 6) oh, and the title is one of the things the original Magic Eight-Ball toy says.

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><p><strong>Outlook Not Good<strong>

Wade wanders less, these days. He hadn't cared at first, and then he'd spent a decade exploring the fortress, and then he hit the planning-to-kill-Stryfe phase.

Now, instead of searching for entertainment, he searches for places to hide from Stryfe. He never gets away for more than a day or two, and Stryfe goes right back to the torture-experiment stuff, but it's still a brief slice of private time to sit and plan and talk to Eight-ball (that's what he calls the thing, because 'TRE' sounds pretentious and 'timeline resonance extrapolator' is too long).

So far, Stryfe thinks Eight-ball is just some pretty trinket Wade found. Quartermaster was smart when it (they?) made Eight-ball, though, so Wade figures it probably wouldn't make a difference if Stryfe _did_ figure out what Eight-ball is.

The things Stryfe does these days aren't nearly as bad as they were at first. These days, he sticks with the physical. When he started with the experiments, just after Wade had finished exploring the fortress, they were mostly psychological. He once spent a whole day pretending to be Nate, and Wade totally bought it. Wade hid in the dungeon for a week after that; Stryfe laughed at him when he surfaced for junkfood.

Today, Stryfe is meticulously dissecting the muscles of Wade's forearm. Wade occasionally glances over to watch the sinews twisting themselves back together.

"Is there any chance of wrapping this up soon?" Wade asks. "Because…y'know, my social calendar is busting at the seams. Blind dates, a shuffleboard tournament, a pub crawl…and then some popcorn and a movie."

"When we're finished here, you can have all the popcorn you want," Stryfe replies absently, and prods something that sends a jolt of pain up Wade's shoulder.

"Ow," Wade obligingly says. "Seriously, snookums, how long is this going to take?"

"Are you bored, my pet?"

"_Immensely_, muffin."

Stryfe's eyebrows raise slightly. "Then I'm clearly not accomplishing my goals. Ah, well…back to the proverbial drawing board. I'll have something more interesting—or at the very least, more distractingly agonizing—by morning." He sits back, and Wade finds himself freed.

"I can go get my popcorn?" Wade asks while his skin knits back together.

"Yes. Feel free to pursue whatever fleeting amusements you like, but if you're not back by breakfast, I'll have to fetch you. I don't think either one of us would like that, Wade."

Wade hops up and salutes smartly. "Yessir, O provider of my munchies. Back by breakfast, scout's honor. One last thing before I go: you never poison me anymore. I'm starting to feel a lack of effort in our relationship on your part."

Stryfe gives him a bemused little grin (_Nate's_ grin, and it's times like these that he hates Stryfe so much he feels like puking). "Wade, would you like me to poison your popcorn for you?"

"Nah, that's okay, babe," Wade dismisses with a flap of his hand. "I know you're busy with the whole 'planning my horrific eternal suffering' schtick. A boy likes to be surprised now 'n again, that's all."

"I shall endeavor to surprise you tomorrow, my dear. Knowing your off-color proclivities, you may even enjoy it."

Wade swallows the desire to shove a knife up Stryfe's nose while shouting something like, 'Enjoy this, you daddy-complex orphan-clone-bastard!' at the top of his lungs. Instead, he whistles a Stephen Lynch song and orders a big tub of movie popcorn from the nearest food synthesizer.

Today, Wade wanders right out of the fortress and into the barren, blasted foothills that surround it. He sits on a hill and pulls Eight-ball out of a convenient pouch on his belt. The light here is bad (a symptom of multiple nuclear winters), and he can barely see the symbols he needs to start the boot-up sequence. Then he aligns his fingers, and he doesn't have to look to do the rest. Reflexive motions, deeper than conscious memory, a kind of complex fidgeting that he's been doing for almost two thousand years now.

A twinkle and a flash. _~Access granted.~_

"Continuing queries," Wade says, kicking a stone down the hill. "What about decapitation?"

_~Extrapolating statistically likely outcomes under new parameters…~_

While Eight-ball works, Wade munches a handful of popcorn and looks out at the ruined city, trying to pick out recognizeable landmarks. He thinks he can spot part of Trump Tower.

Eight-ball beeps. _~Decapitation proves effective in 63% of attempts.~_

"What about the other thirty-seven?"

_~Multiple variables prevent successful decapitation. Interruption, detection, premature termination of subject designate Wade Wilson WM339.~_

Wade makes a face. "Ew. Premature termination of me is _bad_."

_~This is agreed. At least one timestream branch involving Stryfe's continued rule leads to extinction of the human race.~_

"Three most prevalent interruptions?"

_~Subject designations Hope WM338, Warren Worthington WM339, and Lucas Bishop MP619-Delta.~_

Wade frowns, chomps down another handful of popcorn. "Bishop. Mental note. So I need to make sure they're not in the room."

_~That would increase chances of success by another 17%.~_

"Yuck," he says with his mouth full. "That's still a one-in-five of me failing to decapitate and therefore getting ripped limb from limb."

_~Only 8% of branches lead to your dismemberment.~_

"Don't get technical with me, Eight-ball. Our deadline's coming up, we don't have time for technical."

_~Removing the next two most prevalent sources of interruption would increase chances by an additional 7%.~_

"See, now we're getting somewhere. Who are the next two?"

_~Subject designations Telford Porter WM338 and Joshua Foley WM338.~_

"Who and who?"

_~Telford Porter, codename Vanisher. Mutant subject possessing powers of Darkforce dimensional teleportation and astral projection. Joshua Foley, codename Elixir. Omega-level mutant subject possessing powers of genetic-level biological manipulation useful in curing or inflicting diseases, as well as removing or restoring mutant abilities. An interesting footnote: in nearly 30% of timelines ruled by iterations of Apocalypse Beta, various subject designations of Joshua Foley are given the mantle of Pestilence.~_

"Golly. Didn't need to know that. Kinda creepy, in fact."

In the distance, a scraggly bird of some kind flaps across the sky. Wade fleetingly entertains the notion of shooting it, but he'd get popcorn grease on his favorite gun.

"What was the chance of succes in any kind of attempt while I'm alone with him?"

_~If subject designate Stryfe WM339-Alpha is asleep, 10%. Otherwise, 3%. Calculations include all previously discussed methods. So far, decapitation while subject is engaged in combat with others is the best option.~_

"What if I get them to split up so that everybody who could interrupt is elsewhere, sic the rest of 'em on Stryfe, and _then_ try to hack his head off?"

_~Extrapolation in progress…~_ Eight-ball suddenly flashes blue. _~Yes.~_

Wade looks at the sphere of crystal, shakes it a little, holds it up to the light again. "What the hell kinda answer is that?"

_~If all interruptions are elsewhere and the remainder engage subject in combat, and if you are operating with all stealth systems engaged, an attempt at decapitation will lead to failure in only one branch. That is to say, the chance of success under those conditions is approximately 99%.~_

"Awesome possum," Wade says, cheerful at finally getting some good news. "Who do I need to keep him distracted?"

_~All successful timeline branches require the presence of subject designate Neena Thurman WM339. As you are fond of threes, the next three subject designations most prevalent in successful branches are Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma, Logan WM338, and James Proudstar WM339.~_

"Eight-ball, is Bishop in this timeline _now_?"

_~Scanning worldwide chronometric wavelength… No.~_

"Fudgesicles. Any particular time he's supposed to arrive?"

_~Extrapolation in progress… Lucas Bishop Delta was assigned at the schism occurring when multiple subject designations of Nathan Dayspring took multiple subject designations of Hope from their respective parent timelines. Delta iterations are those subjects who chose to destructively pursue Nathan Dayspring and Hope.~_

"Right. So. Bad guy, then. Will you be getting around to answering my question at some point?"

_~Patience is a virtue. Context was required. Subject designate MP616-Delta has already heavily intersected the current timeline. However, subject designate MP619-Delta will intersect next, due to an encounter with the timestream slicing anomaly which caused the schism of Nathan Dayspring into Gamma iterations. There is a 97% probability that he will arrive before the end of the week.~_

Wade waves a handful of popcorn. "Look who you're talking to, Eight-ball. 'Patience is a virtue'? Clearly Q made you with a sense of humor."

_~It would appear so.~_

"And a smart mouth. Oh! Hey, how much time is left before Nate's crew shows up?"

_~Subject designations Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma and Hope WM338 will arrive approximately six months from now. Other aforementioned subject designations will arrive two days later.~_

"Seriously?" Wade squawks, spraying popcorn across the hill. "I have to keep the Fabulous Chocolate Fascist's claws out of Hot-Evil-Clone-Boy for six friggin' months?"

_~Alternatively, you could arrange to have subject designate Stryfe WM339-Alpha kill him.~_

Wade scoffs bitterly, and stuffs his mouth full of popcorn again. "Shyeah, I'll have a great time explaining _that_ to Nate… 'Sweetie, I know you feel he was just misguided and could've been made to see reason, but he precipitated worldwide nuclear winter and the near-extinction of the species, and I was feeling frustrated after playing doctor with Stryfe for a couple hundred years.'"

_~Your reasoning is sound. Why would subject designate Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma fail to comprehend such a decision?~_

"Oh, Eight-ball, you are so endlessly naïve… Nate has very little sense of logic. He went completely 'killing people is bad' for the last twenty years of his life. It's one of his annoying-but-cute-in-a-dorky-annoying-way traits."

It's one of his traits that led to the endless bickering that Wade hated at the time but dearly misses now.

Wade sighs and scuffs his boot in the dust.

It'll be nice to see Nate—the _real_ Nate—again. He'll have to make an effort not to annoy him, so that when he and Hope go back to the twenty-first century, he'll be all doting and contrite like Wade remembers him being.

Nate _has_ to let Wade be around Hope, because raising Hope is probably the only worthwhile thing Wade can remember doing in his life.

…okay, aside from all the really great sex. Because that was…y'know, really great.

…yeah, and aside from saving the world from the Skrulls. And from being turned into happy zombies by the Mithras. And from having their souls eaten because Nate almost didn't let Jiminy Cricket be his guide when that Heca-whatever monster showed up.

But raising Hope was definitely more lastingly important than saving an ungrateful world or boffing some beautiful people (and _man_, Wade has slept with some real hotties in his nineteen-plus centuries on the planet).

Seriously. Every time somebody saves the world, it just goes and gets itself endangered again (usually within the month). And even if he managed to boink the most beautiful person in the history of _ever_, he'd just be horny again the next day (okay, ten minutes later, to be perfectly honest). Hope will be awesome for the rest of her life (which, since she's spent so much time with the Summers clan, will probably be another couple hundred years).

And a talking empty snowglobe is going to help him make sure there's no creepy megalomaniac there to cramp her style.

Ah.

_Aha._

Wade slowly stands and holds the extrapolator up to the fading daylight. "Eight-ball, I am a flippin' _genius_."

_~No evidence exists to support such a claim.~_

"Shush."

**.End.**


	3. Touched

i can't imagine that being raised by Apocalypse would do much for a guy's emotional maturity. XD

**warnings:** slash. blood-n-guts. reference to torture and human experimentation. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: pg (would've been g, but Wade says 'damn').

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade.

**timeline:** 3921, six months before Nate and Hope arrive. the morning after **Outlook Not Good**.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) title comes from the VAST song "Touched," which is about crazy people in love. XD 2) i didn't proofread this very carefully, so there might be errors floating around; lemme know if you find any.

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><p><strong>Touched<strong>

Stryfe considers himself accomplished.

His foster-father, who was also his would-be subverter, is no more—of this he is fairly certain, although if Wade had been there, he probably would have been a bit more thorough than Stryfe (he is so endearingly imaginative that way).

His 'brother,' the creature whom he hates most, fled back to the past centuries ago, was killed long before. He is currently the sole owner of his face.

The few remaining 'free rebels' on the continent are being slowly but surely starved out, and those on other continents lack the resources to mount a campaign against him (En Sabah Nur's efforts were quite useful in that respect).

Thanks to a combination of mutant abilities and technology, he now lives ageless, outside of time, frozen in the prime of his life with a strong body and a fully matured mutant gift.

Perhaps most importantly of all, he has a dangerous and entertaining companion.

What a magnificent creature his brother found so long ago!

If Wade had been a Rider of the Storm in the early days of the reign of Apocalypse, at least two of the major skirmishes of the millennium could have been averted altogether. For some complicated psychological reasons that Stryfe doesn't bother to puzzle out, Wade both enjoys and excels at the art of slaughter, and would therefore make a wonderful addition to any conquering force. After seeing some of the things of which he is capable, Stryfe is surprised the free nations didn't fight over Wade, in the days when he was still roaming.

And to think that he could be bought with food and a smile…

Like a wild animal, pure in its actions and simple in its wants.

Herald of Dayspring. Deathless. Deadpool.

Whatever man molded Wade, he was both a genius and an artist.

Of late, Stryfe has been toying with Wade's inner workings, like a child taking apart a clock to see how the gears and springs fit together. The genetic engineering and re-engineering that went into Wade has a pattern too fluid to be instructed or mechanical. It isn't perfect, but it's remarkably expert for twentieth century work. After all, the riddle of 'normal' human DNA was only completely unraveled in the twenty-fourth century, and the X-gene is still mostly a mystery. The fact that Wade even _survived_ the process is a testament to the fine craft of his maker.

He wants to understand how Wade is constructed. He wants to know how Wade's mind can be so slippery and shielded from his view without Wade being an amnesiac madman (and while Wade is a killer, a little bit of a masochist, and very much a sadist, he is quite sane). He wants to find a way to restore Wade's physical appearance—because Wade may joke about his looks, but Stryfe is certainly perceptive enough to find the grain of sincerity in such self-deprecation. Stryfe honestly couldn't care less what Wade looks like, but he wants Wade to be happy.

And therein lies the epiphany which has caused him both joy and revulsion.

Stryfe has _never_ cared whether someone else was happy. He was taught that worrying about others only makes it easier to be hurt.

_Love things, my son, but do not invest in them; you must at all times be ready to cast them aside should they hinder you._

Advice he'd taken to heart—advice that had let him cut his 'father' down to save himself.

It's perplexing, and he frowns absently while he works.

"What's wrong, doc?" Wade asks. "You find a bad kidney? Should I lay off the soda?"

Stryfe rolls his eyes. "Actually, your organs are in surprisingly good order, considering your diet."

"Well, what's the good of living in a constant state of regeneration if my organs can't handle a little abuse?"

Stryfe slices off a piece of Wade's liver and drops it into a preservation canister. He'll check tomorrow to see whether the sample has grown into a new organ.

"Ow," Wade says, though Stryfe's sure he doesn't mean it.

By the time he turns back from sealing the canister, Wade's liver is whole again—as expected, since the human liver is meant to regenerate itself even in non-mutants. Where does the energy come from? How are the cells able to reproduce themselves so quickly and with no apparent needs other than oxygen? One might expect Wade to need to eat constantly to fuel such an extreme rate of cellular regeneration, but he _starved_ for four centuries with no lasting ill effects.

Stryfe never admits to being stumped, never admits to requiring assistance…but he is truly baffled.

He takes a sample of Wade's appendix—he'll show it to the Quartermaster. None of the computer's personalities is technically a geneticist (Stryfe hunted them for their ability to make weapons and tools, after all), but McCoy's knowledge base was surprisingly broad. Perhaps the Quartermaster will make some key observation that Stryfe is overlooking, and everything will fall together.

"Why not just get a bit of everything?" Wade asks. "Y'know, just in case. To save time. Three weeks down the road, you'll be all 'damn, now I need some small intestine,' and then you'll have to cut me back open."

Stryfe withholds a sigh. "Then three weeks from now, you shall have something to do with your day besides aimless wandering and playing with that little glass ball you found."

"Don't make that face."

He blinks. "What face?"

Wade pouts at him. "That worn-out, frustrated, 'Wade, will you please shut up?' face he always made."

The only thing Stryfe hates more than ever having shared a face with Nathan Dayspring is the fact that the accursed wretch _had Wade first_. It isn't as though such an idealistic rebel-savior-turned-pacifist could possibly have fully appreciated Wade… Surely Dayspring spent their time together trying to 'fix' the bloodlust that was bone-deep in Wade, and how _dare_ he try to _fix_ something so _perfect_?

"He wanted to change you," Stryfe asserts. "I only want you to be yourself."

"Then why are you making that face?"

Stryfe smiles and decides to answer with a half-truth, the way Wade usually does. "Because you are _amazing_, and I'm having difficulty in pinning down exactly how you manage it, my dear."

Wade shrugs a little. "A steady diet of sex, violence, and junkfood."

"Then I shall let you get back to it," Stryfe says, standing to organize the samples he's taken. Over on the shelf, there's a fingertip, some brain matter, and marrow from different locations. He slides the piece of liver onto the shelf (sure enough, it's already beginning to grow) and sets off for the armory with the appendix sample.

A call of, "Hey, babe?" from behind him makes him stop.

"Yes, Wade?"

Wade looks a little suspicious. "You wouldn't happen to be…oh, I dunno…hunting for a way to _kill_ me, wouldya?"

He chuckles. No, if he wanted Wade dead, he'd simply fling him into the bottom of the Marianas Trench and hold him there for a day or so (just to be sure). "Where would you get an idea like that, my pet? My life would be exceedingly boring without you."

"Oh," Wade says, a trifle awkwardly. Then he draws himself up smugly. "Well, _duh_. 'Cause I'm _amazing_."

Stryfe just grins and continues on his way to the armory.

Soon enough, he'll have tested and charted thoroughly enough to start rearranging Wade's genetic structure, and then Wade will be happy, and he'll forget all about Dayspring. No more vacant daydreaming, no more wistful stares, no more accidental utterances of the wrong name (which never occurs in bed, oddly enough). Wade will be in the here-and-now, living the perfect existence Stryfe has laid out for him, never sparing another thought to the wasted earlier centuries of his life.

Stryfe stops in mid-stride.

Is this what love is?

He cocks his head. "Curious…"

Then he shakes the fleeting thought away and keeps walking.

**.End.**


	4. Pretend

begin teh Awesome Plan. XD

**warnings:** slash. reference to violence. reference to torture and human experimentation. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: r (primetime tv plus s***, f*** and c**k).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade.

**timeline:** 3922, the day Nate and Hope arrive in Earth-339.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) i've made a little game out of Wade's nicknames for people. i try not to repeat myself too much, except for Hope (who's almost always 'munchkin,' 'precious,' or 'princess'). 2) why doesn't Hope wonder how Wade knows so much? the real reason is narrative convenience. XD; but we'll say it's because she assumes Eight-ball told him. 3) i'm sure i had something else to say about this one, but lunch is almost over. _ pretend i said something profound. =D

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><p><strong>Pretend<strong>

Wade remembers now that it is surprisingly difficult to play dumb.

Bishop has been annoying and suspicious from the moment he arrived, even through all the bowing and scraping he does. And _god_, he hovers around Stryfe like a fly on a damn turd, and sometimes Wade just wants to say 'fuck it' to his Awesome Plan and just fucking _kill_ the bastard. Sure, he's Someone Besides Stryfe, and he's a fine example of masculinity, and all that jazz, but he wants to kill Hope, and that makes Wade want to stab him a few dozen times. In fact, if he stops to think about it, he starts to hate Bishop about twice as much as he hates Stryfe.

"Stryfe, honey, do the food synthesizers know how to make Funyuns?" Wade calls as he wanders into the throne room.

Apparently, Stryfe and Bishop have been plotting, because the viewer is active and Wilt Chamberlain's evil twin shoots Wade a dirty look over his shoulder.

The hell with _that_. Wade isn't scared of much of anything, but he is particularly not-scared of a fucking chicken-shit baby-killer like Lucas fucking Bishop. Nate did the 'I'm From the Future and I Said So' thing, sure, but fucking _Bishop_ actually uses it as justification to _kill_ people who haven't done _shit_ to _anybody_.

So Wade curls around Stryfe's arm like he did in the old days and _ignores_ Bishop (Stryfe smells too much like Nate, and while it was comforting at first, it rankles after all the torture shit).

"I'm not sure what a 'funyun' is, but you could simply ask the food synthesizers," Stryfe replies, waving a hand to shift the viewer's focus to a different part of the city.

"Hm. Didn't think of that." He tugs at Stryfe's arm. "Let's go do something, cuddle-bug. It's been ages since the last time you did something fun like drive hot needles under my fingernails."

Stryfe smirks. "Bored again, my pet?"

"You haven't even sent me off to kill people lately."

"Cable will be here any day now," Bishop interjects. "You can kill _him_."

"Yeah, sure, _Cable_," Wade scoffs. "Good one. He's been dead for—" _…one thousand, eight hundred, and ninety-eight years, two hundred and twelve days, thirteen hours, eight minutes, seven seconds, eight seconds, nine seconds…_ "—a helluva long time."

Bishop rolls his eyes. "He'll be timesliding in."

Wade makes a show of scowling over at Bishop before leaning closer to Stryfe. "Listen, honey-bee, the stick-in-the-mud over there's been cutting into our 'alone time.' We could totally ditch him for a day and think of something creative involving strawberries. Whattaya say, sugar-pie? You, me, a bed, 'n a bowl of fruit…"

Stryfe chuckles and tickles Wade's chin. "Tempting, my dear, but Bishop and I were deep in discussion before you interrupted."

Two can play at that game.

Wade straightens with a snort and draws a sword from his back. "Fine. Whatever. I'm gonna go cull the ranks again, in that case. I still say the whole idea is ridiculous—even _if_ Nate shows up, what's he gonna do? Sacrifice himself nobly at you? Saw that rerun a few times _last_ millennium, and I'm pretty tired of it by now, so I think I'll watch something else that day."

"You sound bitter," Stryfe notes cheerfully.

He gestures to Bishop with his sword. "That's because the bastard son of Tyson Beckford and Arnold Schwarzeneggar is seriously cramping my style. I'm bored and horny, and you're too busy _being deep in discussion_ to do anything about it. What the hell good is it being the pet killer of the guy who conquered the world if there's no _porn_? Ugh. I gotta go kill somethin'." And he turns to go.

"Not the guards, please," Stryfe calls after him. "It's hard to find good help, I'm sure you'll agree."

Perfect. Wade sighs thickly and waves a hand. "Fine, fine, I'll go look for some bandit stragglers or something." He makes sure to gripe and complain his way out of the fortress. Once he's in the city, he turns on his stealth module, wanders a little more to make double-sure he isn't being followed, and takes Eight-ball out. Quickly, he turns to the sun (just a bright spot over the haze, really) and rotates the sphere until the control grid appears—he's been thinking lately that things would be a lot simpler if he just carried a flashlight for this, since it's the hardest and most time-consuming part of turning Eight-ball back on.

When it wakes up, it flashes red. _~Imminent timeslide phenomenon.~_

"Yeah, I _know_," Wade mutters. "Where are they going to land, Eight-ball?"

_~Examining resonance pattern…~_

A map blinks within the depths of the sphere.

_~The red marker indicates subject designate Wade Wilson WM339. The blue marker indicates the exit point of the timeslide. It is approximately two miles northeast. The timeslide will complete within one hour.~_

"Shit," Wade hisses, picking his way through the rubble. "Shaft wasn't kiddin' when he said 'any day now.'"

After some awkward hiking, he finds the spot and tucks Eight-ball back into its pouch on his belt.

When Nate and Hope arrive, they look like crap. They look tired, and Nate looks like he's taken a beating. Good—they'll probably find a place to bunker down and recuperate before they try anything. He just follows them, secures their perimeter, scares off a patrol of Stryfe's guards by telling them he's hunting rebels in the area and doesn't want to be disturbed.

Wade waits until Nate is asleep before he goes in.

"Psst. Hope."

She whips her head around.

He turns off his stealth module.

"Mister Wilson," she whispers, and comes over to him.

"Hey, princess," he says, and ruffles her hair. "This is all gonna sound weird, but you're gonna have to trust me, okay? Let's go outside, so we don't wake Nate up."

She takes his hand, and the familiarity of it almost freezes him on the spot.

But he leads her outside. With his free hand, he pulls out Eight-ball and holds it up to the light. Symbols glitter in the depths.

"Wow, what's that?" Hope asks.

"It's my crystal ball," he tells her with a cheeky grin. "It can tell the future. And that's how I know that you have to come with me."

To her credit, she pulls away from him with a skeptical frown. "I…I think I should go get Nathan."

"No no no," he quickly says. "Don't do that. Please, just trust me. To keep you safe, I need you to pretend that I kidnapped you. We're going to go to Stryfe's place—"

Her eyes get big, and she opens her mouth to argue.

"—but I promise I won't let him hurt you. It's just for a little while. In about a day, Neena and the others will get here, and I'll send them to pick you up."

"You're not going to do it yourself?"

"Nate 'n I are gonna be busy killing Stryfe. That's why I want you to be somewhere else. Understand?"

Slowly, she nods.

He holds up a finger. "I dunno if you know this yet, but Stryfe looks and sounds just like Nate. So if Nate tries to get you to go somewhere with him, _don't_. Wait for Warren and Josh. Better yet, wait for Laura and Jimmy."

"I know about Stryfe," she says. "I've met two of him. They weren't very nice, even if they _did_ look and sound like Nathan. But why can't I stay with Nathan?"

"Eight-ball, what are the chances of Hope surviving the next week if she stays with Nate?"

_~Approximately 8%,~_ Eight-ball promptly replies.

Wade shrugs. "That's why, princess. If I leave you with him, you'll be in danger, and we can't have that."

"But how do you know if I'll be safer at Stryfe's place?"

"Eight-ball, what are the chances of Hope surviving the next week if she's a captive of Stryfe?"

_~Assuming that subject designate Lucas Bishop MP619-Delta is still being watched closely by subject designate Stryfe WM339-Alpha, 95%.~_

"And ninety-five's a lot better than eight, sweetie," Wade says.

She frowns. "And what if Bishop isn't being watched by Stryfe?"

_~Then he will still have to overcome security protocols. Chances of subject designate Hope WM338 surviving the week in that case fall to 75%.~_

"Still better than eight," Wade points out.

"Okay," she says after a while.

So he hitches her up onto his hip and starts picking his way back through the ruins to the fortress. "And you'll have to pretend you can't tell the difference between Nate and Stryfe."

"Okay," she says again.

Thanks to the stealth module, he manages to get her back to the fortress by the end of the day with no interruptions.

"Honey, I'm home!" he calls as he walks into the throne room. "Look what I found—can I keep 'er?"

Stryfe looks up from watching a rebel patrol in the viewer. Bishop looks up and flinches.

Hope rubs her eyes with feigned sleepiness. "Nathan?" she yawns. "Oh. Here you are."

"See, I toldya I'd take you to him, Hope," Wade says.

As always, Stryfe catches on quickly. He stands from his throne and comes over to them. "Yes, here I am," he says. "But you must be sleepy…Wade, find a place for Hope to rest."

"Okie-doke!" he chirps, and walks back out.

"Mister Wilson," Hope hisses urgently.

"Just keep pretending," he whispers out of the corner of his mouth.

She clams up. Good girl.

He takes her to the armory.

_~Organic presence detected—welcome, Wade Wilson.~_

"Q, lock us down," he says, and sets Hope on her feet.

The doors hiss shut, and the thick blast panel thuds down over them.

_~The armory is fully shielded from observation and intrusion.~_

Wade takes a moment to just look at Hope.

Seven-ish, like she was in his very earliest memories of her. So young, but already used to running, already used to seeing wars. Unwashed face and hair. Ill-fitting hand-me-down clothes. Bright, brave eyes.

"You okay, princess?" he asks her, and she nods.

"I'm glad you know who I am, Mister Wilson. The last Mister Wilson didn't know me. I'm not sure he even knew we were there. The one before that didn't seem to know me very well."

"Well, I know you very well. You know who that big dark-skinned dude was back there?"

"Bishop," she says in a hushed voice, eyes wide with fear.

He pats her head to reassure her. "Yeah. Good, that saves a lot of explaining. While you're in here, you'll be safe from him. If he comes by, Q will warn you and let you into a good hiding spot—all you have to do then is be very quiet. This room is set up to survive a seige, so it's got everything—food, water, blankets, even a bathroom. I need you to _stay here_."

After a while, she nods again. "Okay. What if Stryfe comes?"

"You can tell the difference between Nate and Stryfe?" he asks warily.

"Yes."

"Yeah, I thought I could, too. But I was wrong, once. This Stryfe is _very_ good at pretending to be Nate."

"Then how will you know if you killed the right one?" she demands.

He holds up Eight-ball. "My crystal ball can tell them apart. And I remembered something about Nate that Stryfe _can't_ fake."

"What's that?"

He grins, kisses her forehead. "Nate loves you very much. Stryfe doesn't love _anything_." With one last affectionate ruffle of her hair, he stands and goes to the door. "Q's not that great a conversationalist, but you can talk to him any time, if you get lonely. Be a good girl."

When the doors are shut and locked behind him, he casually strolls his way back to the throne room to tie up the pair of oversized loose ends there.

"I trust you have an explanation," Stryfe drawls.

"Found her wandering around in the ruins," Wade lies easily, and shrugs. "She called out my name, so I figured she must be one of our dimension-hopping guests. I dunno—maybe she'll make good bait."

Bishop doesn't say anything, but he's giving Wade his most suspicious and distrusting look yet.

"Bait?" Stryfe echoes.

Wade waves a hand at Bishop. "Yeah. _He_ was sayin' about how Nate 'n the gang are s'posed to be showing up, right? I've never met a Nate who wasn't a sucker for a little kid in distress. Way I see it, I go out there, play up the dumb-and-crazy routine, tell them I saw her leave with you… Y'know, a little turncoat action. Some double-agent work."

"What a surprising stroke of brilliance, my pet," Stryfe remarks.

Wade beams. "Aw, shucks, babe… I try." _You smarmy, underestimating jerk._

"And what's to stop you from joining Cable's side?" Bishop asks sharply.

But Wade is ready for that. He scoffs. "Yeah, _that_ would happen. Hello? Earth to Bishop! That mook is useless, doesn't rule the remainder of the world, _and_ doesn't have a machine that can make me any kind of cookie I want."

"What the hell does that have to do with—"

"_Any_ kind of cookie!" Wade interrupts loudly. "Also, our iron-fisted tyrant is better in bed and scratches all my itches. Or _did_ until _you_ showed up and started cock-blocking. And the sooner those feebs are outta here, the sooner _you're_ outta here and I can get back to my blissful existence of torture, sex, and junkfood."

Oh, yeah. Shoulda been an actor.

Stryfe laughs. "Excellent! Go on, then. Play out your little charade. Have your fun. I promise you that when this is over, you will have my undivided attention."

That sounds more like a threat than a promise, but Wade bounces and claps like a cheerleader on crack. "Yay! Who's gonna get evil conquerer sex? Wade's gonna get evil conquerer sex! Don't be too jealous, Luke!"

"Ugh," Bishop says, looking ill.

Awesome Plan in place, suspicion averted.

Wade prances out of the throne room.

**.End.**


	5. Greenie

Awesome Plan Step Two: dupe more feebs.

**warnings:** lightly referenced het. slash. mild violence. reference to torture and human experimentation. reference to character death. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus s*** and f***).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade. reference to Laura/Julian (because Laura deserves some lovin' and Sofia is a hideous goddamn mary-sue).

**timeline:** 3922, a day and a half after Nate and Hope arrive in Earth-339.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) Wade WM339 was an X-Man sometime in the 21st century. eat it, Marvel. XD 2) i couldn't resist the Crazy Earl line. best line in Borderlands (next to 'sweet jesus titty cinnamon' *rofl*). 3) how many video game lines can i squeeze in? i blame the fact that the feebs weren't giving Wade any good song lyrics to reference.

**p.s.** OHCRAP, i just now realized i skipped this chapter when i posted the fic to ! uh...well, it's here now. *sheepish*

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><p><strong>Greenie<strong>

Wade has to use every trick he knows to herd Neena's crew in the right direction.

Fortunately, Nate was too tired and too distraught to go far from his original camp after Wade swiped Hope—that makes things a little easier.

Eventually, after several hours' work, Neena and her buddies duck around a building and practically trip over Nate. Wade gives them a little time to find better shelter and come to grips with their situation before he drops in on them.

Of course, the moment he _does_, Logan puts three claws through his head.

"Stop that, I'm ticklish," he says brightly. "Is this how you greet _all_ your fellow X-Men, or am I just special?"

"You _ain't_ and never _were_ an X-Man," Logan growls.

"Au contraire," Wade counters, and just jerks his head backward to free himself from Logan's claws. "Go home and give it five to ten years."

"Wade, what are you doing here?" Neena demands.

He blinks at her. "Finding you before any bandits do?"

"No, I mean…how did you _get_ here?"

He gestures vaguely. "I walked. By the way, I saw Tall-Armored-and-Evil carrying off the cute little redhead earlier. I said to myself, 'Wade, when did Stryfe ever have a thing for little girls?' and my little yellow boxes replied, 'Only when you wear the schoolgirl skirt.' And then I figured _he_ must have figured she's important."

"Stryfe has Hope?" Nate yelps, trying to stand.

"Cool it, honeybunch," Wade says flatly. "You're in no fit state to do _jack monkey squat_ about it. Yeah, the boss-man has the messianic munchkin. I'm pretty sure he doesn't know who she is, so she's probably safe-ish for a little bit. Definitely long enough for you to stop bleeding everywhere. Then we can just split up, half of us can draw fire while the other half sneak in and get Hope back. Piece of cake."

"Yeah, we buy _that_," Logan scoffs.

"Why not? Because the cake is a lie? I swear the princess isn't in another castle, Mario."

"Wilson, I wouldn't trust you as far as an infant could throw you."

Fair enough, all things considered. Wade shrugs and drops into a crouch at Nate's side. "That's a shame, since I know where she is, I know Stryfe's patrol schedules, and I have top security clearance."

Laura starts forward. "How the hell do you have that kind of information?"

Nate huffs a laugh. "Didn't you hear earlier? He called Stryfe 'boss-man.' Obviously, he's been working for Stryfe."

Wade grins. "Goin' on five hundred and…uh…" He frowns, digs Eight-ball out of its pouch. "Hey, Eight-ball, how long have I been working for that megalomaniacal piece of shit?"

_~Five hundred and sixty-three years.~_

"There ya have it," Wade says, gesturing to the crystal ball.

"What the hell year is this?" the tattoo-faced temporarily-enslaved bad guy squawks.

"Thirty-nine-twenty-two."

"Why?" Neena asks. She's making her 'I'm not sure just how misguided you are yet' frown (which is just a teeny bit insulting, because up to this point, she's always reserved that frown for Nate).

"Because the earth's gone around the sun that many times since Jesus was born?" Wade tries, without much hope. Neena is almost as good at seeing through his feigned ignorance as Nate is.

"Don't play dumb with me, Wade."

"But dumb is my favorite game—I'm good at it."

"You know damn well what I meant. Why work for Stryfe? And why for that long?"

Wade finds himself staring at Nate. He glances away, shrugs a bit. "Eh, the Dark Side has cookies."

"Wade!"

"Whaaat? It's true!" He tosses Eight-ball idly between his hands. "Stryfe's fortress has at least a dozen food synthesizers, and they all know how to make Double Stuf Oreos. But now that you're here, we can save Hope and depose the tyrant, and then I can have the cookies _all to myself_."

The ones who've met him before seem to go for that, and the ones who haven't seem a little worried.

Only Nate keeps looking at Wade with something between suspicion and _knowing_. That's okay; it's Nate, after all. If _anybody_ could tell when Wade is hiding sappiness behind selfishness, it would be _Nate_.

He gets them to let Nate rest for the night. He watches Nate sleep (and it's admittedly creepy just how much he's missed doing that). It turns out that his memories of Nate are perfect—he hasn't forgotten a single thing. From the tone of his breathing to the exact length of his eyelashes, everything is the way he remembers it.

To his surprise, Laura warily approaches him just before dawn. She crouches a few meters away, mask off to show green eyes, pale and pretty in the dimness, and _god_ she looks so young.

She was pushing eighty the last time he saw her, didn't look a day over twenty-five. _Don't listen to them_, she insisted, her grip strong enough to crack his bones even as she lay dying. _Don't let them tell you it was your fault, because it _wasn't_. Not this, not the Big One, not Nathan._

"Look, Deadpool," she says. "You don't know me—"

"You don't know _me_," he corrects. "Yet. But I know you, Laura. And I kinda expected you to hate me as much as Logan does at this point. I guess it's not genetic, then."

She just watches him for a while. "You don't fool me with that crap about cookies. You did it because Stryfe looks like Nathan, didn't you?"

_And smells like him, and sounds like him, and smiles like him, and frowns like him…_ He snorts. "You landed that Julian kid yet?"

"We're talking about _you_, not me."

He looks at Nate, wonders how long it's been since the big dork shaved. "Well, you will. And you're pretty much guaranteed to outlive him. And when you do, you'll understand."

"It's just…if that's what buys your loyalty, then how can we be sure you're really helping us?"

After thinking it over for a bit, he grins at her. "You haven't met Hope. Sure, I love Nate…but if it came down to it, I'd shoot him in the head to save her. I'd be real _sorry_ about it, but I'd do it. You'll understand _that_ when you have your first kid."

She frowns. "But she isn't important to _this_ time—why do you care so much about her?"

"Because, almost two thousand years ago, I raised her. I may not've had anything to do with bringing her into the world, but she is _my baby_, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let that holier-than-thou asshole Bishop harm one hair on her precious little head. Like I said, you'll understand when you have kids."

She seems to accept that. At length, she cocks her head to one side. "What was that talking globe you had earlier?"

"Eight-ball? It's a timeline resonance extrapolator. With a smart mouth and a bad sense of humor, but what can you expect from something made by Weasel and a bunch of other crazy geniuses? At least it works as advertised, which isn't really something I've come to expect from Richards. I guess Stark's awesomeness saved the day. It usually does—y'know, for everybody but him. I've noticed that trend with martyrs." He aims a mild glare at Nate's sleeping form.

She frowns again (this may just be the default facial expression of people with a certain amount of Logan's DNA, because Laura frowns a lot, and any time that Wade can remember Daken not smirking, it was because he was frowning). "Timeline…"

"Resonance extrapolator."

"That's some kind of computer?"

He realizes he's already told her too much. "Uh. Yeah, some kind. Just think of it as my Magic Eight-ball. I ask it questions, it gives me answers. Sometimes, I even understand them."

That makes her smile. "Quite a feat, from the way the others talk about you."

"I'll let ya in on a little secret," Wade says, eyeing Jimmy and bird-boy, who are on watch ten yards off.

Laura inches closer (even though she probably could have heard him just as well if she were sitting on Jimmy's shoulders).

"These days, I'm not as dumb or crazy as I used to be. My brain works just fine—better than fine. I ain't sayin' I'm a genius or nothin'…but just trust me a little. I know what I'm doin', Greenie."

For a few seconds, Laura just looks at him, still as a predator waiting for its prey to make the wrong move. Then she shrugs. "Well, you don't smell like you're lying this time. I suppose there's really no more reason to distrust you than anyone else."

Slowly, so that she doesn't claw his arm off, Wade pokes her on the nose. "Exactly."

In the east, the haze has turned from blue-black to reddish.

"Let's get everyone up so we can eat something before we set out," Laura suggests, and gracefully unwinds from her crouched position.

"Hold up—how much time d'you guys have before those chronometric displacement bands run out of juice?"

Her gaze locks on him sharply, and he sees a tiny twitch of her eyebrow. "How do you know what they are?"

He rolls his eyes. "It's the fortieth century, kid—chronometric displacement is child's play compared to timesliding. How _long_ have you _got_?"

She glances at the armband. "A little under ten hours. Is it far?"

He shakes his head. "Not really, but the going's rough, especially until the light gets brighter…and we're still in no-man's-land right now, where bandits and rebels and Stryfe's people all range. For you guys? Four hours in good light; longer if we don't wait and somebody trips and breaks a leg."

"And how long would we need to wait?" she counters impatiently.

"I give it maybe three or four. Sorry, but your friends stay broken when they fall off ledges or get ambushed by bandits."

Slowly—very slowly—she backs away from him. "There's something you're not telling me. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish…whether you're intentionally delaying us…buying favor with Stryfe to protect Hope, maybe… Just remember that there will be twelve claws waiting for you if you fuck us over."

Ah, _there's_ the Laura he remembers. Meaner than Logan, when she wants to be, especially to strangers. He grins and draws an X over his heart. "Not fuckin' ya over, Greenie. Cross my heart and hope t' cry."

Still slowly, always with her eyes on him, she backs toward Jimmy.

"How long've you been awake?" Wade murmurs, chewing on a fingernail.

"You don't know?" Nate asks. He sits up, wincing and holding his right side.

"Was payin' attention to Laura. The better to know when I'm about to get a pair of claws in my face."

"What's the real reason you don't want us setting out for another four hours?"

Wade has been playing in the wastes long enough to know every faction's patrol schedules like the back of his hand. On his own, he could slip through in under two hours. Between Nate's injuries and the whiny ex-villain-guy, they'll have to take the broadest corridor of safety possible. That means waiting for the highest rads. No native with half a brain would be outside between ten and two—a week of that would probably bake off every inch of a guy's skin, with the state of the atmosphere these days. Wade figures just once won't do anything irreparable to Nate's happy parade of mouseketeers.

Nate stares at him.

"It's the best time," Wade says. "High sun means we can see traps and pitfalls. Stepping on a pulse mine would put a real damper on the whole 'hey, let's rescue Hope' thing, and the light these days is less than ideal, thanks to Skywalker's warmongering. This is the…third nuclear winter we've had, I think. The nearest big boom went down way south of here, that's the only reason we have daylight at all, and why we aren't ass-deep in ash."

"I appreciate the concern, Wade, but she was right; we're pressed for time. I don't want Hope in Stryfe's hands any longer than absolutely necessary."

Wade laughs. "Nate, I don't think you get it. Hope is _way_ safer than we are. Almost everyone out here with us will shoot first and ask questions if anybody's left alive. Stryfe isn't likely to kill her, especially since he knows she's leverage against you."

"And how do you know that? Your 'magic eight-ball'?"

"Yup. I know it's against your nature, but don't do anything _dumb_, Nate. Just trust me."

For a long time, Nate just watches him in blank-faced silence. "Okay," Nate says at last.

**.End.**


	6. Premonition

Awesome Plan Step Three: lead the feebs to the tower.

**warnings:** slash. reference to violence. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade.

**timeline:** 3922, two days after Nate and Hope arrive in Earth-339.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) (Deadpool &) Cable #25 is possibly the only redeeming issue of Cable's new series. 's all i got to say 'bout that. 2) Stryfe is totally a mani-pedi kinda guy. gotta look nice for flip-flop weather, right? XD being the conquerer of the world doesn't mean you can't have pretty feet. 3) TMI = "too much information." it's what you say to people who share a more than you wanted to hear. 4) the Painted Desert is the area around the Grand Canyon. i've only been once, but it was amazing-i'd never seen a red desert before.

there are some alternate endings to the Hypnic Twitches that start right after this: Daydream Alpha - _WM343_ (see my Stories list on my profile), Daydream Beta - _Untitled_ by Sarkywoman (sarkywoman (dot) livejournal (dot) com/192466 (dot) html), and Daydream Gamma - _On Holding Yourself Hostage_ by MerianMoriarty (merianmoriarty (dot) deviantart (dot) com/art/CnDP-Hostage-161442105).

* * *

><p><strong>Premonition<strong>

Getting through the city isn't as easy as Wade hoped it would be.

A little after eleven, just as the radiation levels start to peak for the day, Golden Boy (whom Wade doesn't remember having met in the past, but maybe it was back before his brain was fixed again) notices that they're all being slowly baked.

"Stop," Josh says.

"Don't stop, we're in a hurry," Wade casually contradicts.

"We have to get out of the sun—the radiation is way too high. We're being cooked alive!"

The dorky teleporting villain shrieks and scrambles into the shade.

Wade waves a hand and keeps walking. "You wanna make it to the fortress without an arrow through your nose, you gotta be out during high rads. Even then, the place is a damn maze of alarms and traps."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" asks Laura.

"Because it's not a big deal. Three of us patch up all by ourselves, Nate used to get twice this for breakfast every day, and the rest of you can be fixed by the gene-rearranging kid. Can't say the same about being riddled with holes or cut in half. _Keep walking_."

They go on with a certain minimum level of fussing and complaining. On the way, he discusses the plan of action: the heavy hitters will distract Stryfe while those with protective abilities sneak in to get Hope. No one questions the split he suggests. He gives directions to one of the fortress' hidden entrances (which he left unlocked a few days ago, assured by Q that it would remain that way), and from there to the armory. He tells them to let the assault team infiltrate first, as cover. No one questions his tactics.

For a moment, he worries that they've all gone bonkers. But no, that look in their eyes is the begrudging sentiment of, 'Well, what choice have we got?'

It's almost one by the time somebody's stupid enough to stray from his footsteps, and he manages to yank Vanisher back by the collar before he can set a toe down on the pulse mine.

"God, you people are _dumb_," Wade mutters, hunkering down to blow some dust away.

A short distance behind him, he can hear the others shuffle cautiously closer.

Drawing a breath, Wade starts to lecture in his best Ben Stein impression. "This, class, is a pulse mine. It is the big brother of the tectonic anti-vehicle mine. When a moron steps on it, it releases a powerful directed _pulse_ of plasma downward, making an instant tiger pit up to thirty feet wide and eighty feet deep. If said moron is very lucky, the walls of the pit won't immediately cave in on him, and he'll get the chance to see whether he dies of starvation, dehydration, or an infected compound fracture. From now on, let's all walk where Deadpool walks, mm-kay?"

More muttering and grumbling ensues, but at least the rejects fall back into line.

A little while later, Worthington (Wade has never thought of him as 'Warren,' just because it's a weird name and makes him think of bunnies) asks the question that's probably been plaguing them all: "How did it get like this?"

Wade laughs.

Really, there's no other way to respond to a question like that.

"For those just tuning in, two thousand years ago, the hero of our story—that's me—helped Nathan Askani'son Gesundheit, Queen of the Free World, to sketchily rescue a baby from Alaska. And Alaska sucks, so I can tell you it was definitely a _rescue_. Off they went, in a magical time-travelling bubble, and they were chased by the eeeeevil baby-killing asshole from the future…LUCAS BISHOP! Dun-dun-_duuuuuun_!"

"Wade, knock it off," Neena sighs.

"Awww, but it was just getting good…"

"So this is Bishop's doing?" Laura asks.

"More or less, yes. He apparently had this brilliant idea that if he made most of the world uninhabitable, Nate and Hope would either die or end up in one of the small, easy-to-search regions that could still support life. Also, there may at some point in time be an _entirely_ incorrect impression that a really, really, _really_ big nuclear detonation was in some way distantly possibly _my_ fault, but it was one hundred and ten percent totally _not_."

"Awful lot of denial, there," notes Jimmy.

"Maybe I'm tired of saving the world only to have people accuse me of being the one trying to destroy it," he retorts. "I was only very _obliquely_ involved _at all_, and not in a causal kind of way. Back to the original question—wars. Lots of wars. Most of them Bishop's fault. Three of them nuclear. That's how the world got this way. So let's go kick his ass and lock him up somewhere."

Logan mutters something about wanting to 'gut the traitor' instead, but Nate and the others ignore him.

At length, they manage to make it out of the city without anybody getting shot or blown up, and Wade leads them at a faster pace through the outer stretch of barrens.

"Won't Stryfe be watching?" Jimmy asks when they're low on a ridge about a mile from the fortress.

"Why would he?" Wade replies. "I told you, it's high rad. Nobody comes out in this but me, and I get to come and go whenever I like. He's probably taking a nap, or getting a pedicure or something."

"Arrogant," Nate mutters.

Wade just shrugs. "There's only been one major rebel uprising in all the time I've worked for him. It was a good day. A Tuesday. I didn't keep an exact count, but I'm pretty sure I killed about a hundred and sixty-three people that day. And that was with an arm blown off by the very last piece of plasma artillery in North America."

"Jesus," Josh mutters.

"The threat of my boredom keeps 'em in line now," Wade goes on with a sigh. "And _god_, I am so fucking bored. We don't have TV anymore—did you know that? We haven't had TV for fucking seven hundred years. Seven. Hundred. _Years_. You don't wanna know what I do to keep myself entertained."

"I have a feeling I _do_ know," Neena says. "Thanks for sparing us the grisly details."

"So we're just gonna walk up to the front door?" Logan asks loudly, as if he'd like to avoid the subject of Wade's entertainment (even though he could probably stand to partake of some of said entertainment).

"Yep," Wade says, and sets off. "Suicidal complacency, thy name is Stryfe. 'Don't worry, honey, we've got a state-of-the-art security system!' Well, we all know for a fact that the security system is _not_ Wade-proof. Tsk. It's a wonder I didn't depose him sooner. Think of all the obligation-free cookies I coulda had."

"Cookies…" mutters Logan.

"Oh, but think of all the bizarre sexual escapades you would undoubtedly have missed out on," Neena says with feigned cheer (there's a chorus of disgusted noises and awkward throat-clearing).

"To tell the truth, Nate's actually a lot kinkier."

"Than _Stryfe_?" she exclaims, surprised.

"I know, right? I was totally expecting a 'spank me and let me call you daddy' scenario, but he's pretty vanilla, aside from the odd episode of telekinetic bondage."

"Oh, god, TMI!" yelps Josh.

"_Way_," agrees Jimmy.

Just as they hit the flat expanse around the fortress, Wade gets a sudden heavy sense of premonition, and his heart misses a beat. He pauses.

It's early afternoon, yellow-orange brightness shifting slightly to the west. The ground is red, like the Painted Desert. A hot breeze brings the scents of dust and stale ocean. For the first time, Wade can see some semblance of beauty to Stryfe's fortress—a jagged, asymmetrical spire, gleaming silver even in the baked ash-haze of this ugly, ruined world.

He's lived there for over half a millennium, knows it like the back of his hand. Fleetingly, the word 'home' brushes through his mind, but it feels alien and meaningless and a little bit _wrong_.

"Wade?" Nate says gently.

Wade takes a sharp breath through his nose, shakes away the weird reverie. "Yeah. Sorry. Sidetracked. It's not a bad-looking place, you know? Kind of a fixer-upper on the landscaping, maybe, but at least it ain't cluttered with gnomes 'n flamingoes."

"It could use an ornamental bird bath," Josh says dryly.

There's a princess in that tower, and she needs rescuing. Wade starts walking again.

**.End.**


	7. So Long, and Thanks for All the Cookies

Awesome Plan Step Four: assassinate provider of cookies.

**warnings:** slash. violence. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: r (primetime tv plus s***, f***, and c**k).

**pairing:** Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade, reference to Nate/Neena.

**timeline:** 3922, two days after Nate and Hope arrive in Earth-339.

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) the title is, of course, a Hitchhiker's Guide reference. 2) i toyed very briefly with having Wade start gloating _before_ he hacked off Stryfe's head, but he should be old enough by now to know better. 3) poor Bish. he really does believe he's doing the right thing. it's delightfully twisted, and if it didn't cramp Wade's style so much, i might feel sorry for him. 4) isn't it great that Marvel can't seem to decide several things about Nate's tech? example A: the extent of the TO infection. way back in the old issues of X-Force, it took up almost exactly half of his body, but various more recent stuff only shows it going to his waist. i guess he could have synthskin on his leg, like he does for his face. *shrug* example B: where his timeslide module is - probably wasn't part of Greymalkin, the way the bodyslide matrix was, so maybe it's tucked away in the TO? after all, why have a bunch of computer-bits for half your body if you can't at least store some extra techno-gizmos in there? (reminds me of the time Feral wanted to put a slurpee dispenser in Nate's arm XD) i digress (as usual). for the sake of maintenance (and narrative convenience), most of the timeslide components are in accessible parts of Nate's arm/shoulder. because i'm the author and i said so. *lmao* 5) i imagine the rescue crew is in a state of mild shock. "all right, we've gotta go to war with Stryfe to make sure that Hope-what, it's over already?"

* * *

><p><strong>So Long, and Thanks for All the Cookies<strong>

It was a complete mystery how, even with thorough planning, things _always_ got away from Wade.

Somewhere between the front door and the throne room, Five Stupid People Unaware of Wade's Awesome Plan™ managed to screw things up fantastically. The only way it could have gone worse is if Stryfe had decided he needed to change out of his PJs to squish Nate like a bug.

There was some gloating, some cackling, a rehash of the old 'no, _you're_ the clone' argument, some 'what did you do with Hope,' and, for flavor, a pinch of 'now we're going to kill you.'

Needless to say, the moment Team Dumbass opened their big fat mouths, Wade switched on his stealth module and bounced out of harm's way to watch the train wreck take its course, hoping futilely that it was all a bad dream, and he'd wake any minute now to find that his plan had worked beautifully and he'd passed out from celebratory glee.

…yep, aaaaaany minute now…

He hovers near the door with a sword in his hand, perfectly still, and calmly watches the proverbial shit hitting the fan (he entertains a brief mental image of cartoon-Neena flying through a cartoon fan that has Stryfe's cackling face on it). The fight is less than impressive, for a five-on-one brawl, and Wade craves cheesy puffs and a soda, but he remains motionless, not even blinking in case he misses the moment. He lets all the normal, absent musings and dark humor flutter through his brain even as he watches, because he doesn't know for sure whether Stryfe can hear any of his thoughts, and it would suck if he were caught actually paying attention for once.

"Where the hell is Wade?" yells Neena, flipping backward to avoid Stryfe's fist.

"Over there somewhere," grunts Logan. He ducks as Jimmy is sent flying over him. "Just _standin'_ there."

Stryfe laughs. "Enjoying the show, my pet? Why not join us?"

Wade waves his hand, even though Stryfe's back is turned and Wade's optical camo is on. "That's okay, sugarplum," he says. "I hogged all the fun of getting them here—I figured you'd want to joy of bashing Nate's head in all to yourself. But lemme know if these wimpy mortals turn out to be too much for you, and I'll come to your rescue."

Logan swears, and Laura mutters something unpleasant about twelve claws. Nate just takes it all in stride—like he expected it, or maybe like he knows Wade is just waiting (and Wade dares to hope that Nate knows him that well, trusts him that much).

And it's agony, just waiting—but Q and Eight-ball have warned him time and again not to act until the perfect moment, or he'll be throwing away all the years of planning (and probably the lives of Nate and Neena and Laura and their skippy little superhero pals).

Then Stryfe flings Neena into Laura, throws Logan into Jimmy, reaches down to grab Nate by the throat, lifts him up…

Wade springs into motion, blade outstretched, and strikes.

Very slowly, Stryfe's head slides off his shoulders.

"Surprise, honey!" Wade says, flipping his sword to flick blood off the blade and deactivating his stealth module with his free hand. "That's from Q, as a thank-you for multiple counts of kidnapping, extortion, and murder. Like it? I thought you would. By the way, I want a divorce. I'm taking the house and the kids, you can keep the dog and the car. So long, and thanks for all the fish."

There is awkward silence from the others.

"Wade?" Nate coughs, rubbing at his throat.

"Huh," says Logan. "Not bad, Wilson."

Wade shrugs. "The only thing more fun than being a double agent is being a _triple_ agent." He kicks Stryfe's head, watches it bounce satisfyingly across the floor. "And that's for that stunt eight years back when you pretended to be Nate for a whole fuckin' _day_. Prick."

"Let's go get Hope," Neena says, limping over.

He draws Eight-ball from its pouch. "Eight-ball, is the armory still secure?"

_~The Quartermaster says that subject designate Lucas Bishop MP619-Delta is attempting to breach the armory now. So far he has insufficient energy reserves to melt the blast doors.~_

"Fabulous!" Wade cheers, and leads the way down the hall. "Can Q remotely program Bishop's timeslide module?"

_~Of course. Forge, multiple subject designations, was the originator of sliding technology. Since combined computerization, the Quartermaster has improved the timesliding process considerably, enabling such advanced techniques as lateral—or inter-timeline—timesliding.~_

"How the hell does that _thing_ know so much?" Neena grumbles as they follow him to a lift.

Eight-ball blinks red and beeps. _~This 'thing' is a very sophisticated probability calculation node, subject designate Neena Thurman WM339,~_ it reproaches. _~And if this 'thing' possessed more than a very limited simulation of will, it could change the course of a hundred-thousand timestream bundles.~_

Wade sticks his tongue out at Neena and steps off the lift.

Eight-ball beeps again. _~Chronometrically displaced subjects have arrived at the armory and are exacerbating the situation. The Quartermaster estimates that subject designate Lucas Bishop MP619-Delta will achieve the energy supply necessary to penetrate the blast doors in approximately forty seconds.~_

"And now the question is where to send him," Wade sighs. "Where, where, where… We could stick him in a world with Apocalypse, that would serve that cock-blocking, baby-killing bastard right."

"Wade," Nate chides from somewhere behind him.

Wade pouts, but keeps walking. "C'mon, Nate, where's your sense of vengeful malice? Or righteous anger, or whatever… Eight-ball, you've got about a minute and a half to find me a timestream bundle where a Delta iteration of Bishop would do more good than harm."

_~Extrapolation in progress…~_

"Better than sending him back, anyway," Jimmy mutters.

When they turn the corner that leads onto the hallway in front of the armory, Worthington is blasted into the wall next to Wade.

"This must be the place," he says brightly. "Don't bother getting up, bird-boy."

Bishop turns to them. "Wilson. Well, well, well. I knew you'd betray Stryfe. The other one did, too—it ended badly for him."

"Dude, you spent six months in board meetings with the guy. I was heating his mattress for five hundred and sixty-some years. Don't judge me."

Without even looking, Bishop dodges some weird energy blast from Josh (who is busy doing his Oscar statue impression). "Interestingly enough, I don't. Most people will do whatever it takes to survive, Wilson. Only a few of us have the courage to do what it takes to make the world a better place. You probably have no clue who Hope is… I can assure you from firsthand knowledge that Cable is _mistaken_ about her—whatever he's told you is _wrong_. I know it sounds evil and cruel, but that little girl has to die, for the sake of all mutantkind."

It makes Wade sick to hear that kind of bullshit justification, but he shrugs and walks over to the melted and singed door and presses the open sequence on the control panel.

"Wade, what are you _doing_?" Neena hisses.

"Making the world a better place," he replies as the blast doors retract to reveal the armory's interior. Off in a corner is the makeshift bed where Hope has been sleeping, surrounded by the litter of a few meals. Hope is nowhere in sight; probably hiding in the compartment Wade and Q prepped for her.

_~Organic presence detected—Wade Wilson, you are accompanied by unauthorized personnel.~_

"I sure am," Wade replies, absently juggling Eight-ball from hand to hand. "That'll be taken care of…oh, any second now." It beeps and flashes green.

_~A timestream bundle matching provided criteria has been located: 287753-266.~_

"Nifty-keen," Wade says. "Q, please escort Mr. Bishop to timestream bundle 287753-266."

Bishop has time to turn and try to draw a gun. "You bas—"

And then he vanishes in a flash of blue-white light.

Wade puts Eight-ball away and waves. "Bye, have a nice trip! Enjoy the in-flight movie! Okie-dokie, Q, you can let the princess out of her hidey-hole while I fix Nate's timeslide module. Then, I think, a quick bodyslide back to where our chronometrically-displaced guests popped in. Wouldn't want them to have to walk far when they get home."

The shutters in the armory retract and a cabinet door swings open. Hope peeks out cautiously, then quickly runs for the nearest person—it happens to be Logan, and he makes a grumpy face before hitching her up onto his hip. Nate, in the meantime, holds forth his techno-organic arm and flexes his fist until a panel opens near his shoulder.

"The control chip's in your brain, though, right?" Wade says as he digs a multi-tool out of his belt and starts prodding the exposed circuitry.

"Nothing wrong with the control chip," Nate replies. "I think it's somewhere in the telemetry circuit, but I haven't exactly had access to a good set of tools or any replacement parts."

Wade glances up at Nate, realizes all at once that they're standing together, companionably, like _normal_ people. Just a guy helping his best friend with an ouchie he can't quite reach. He grins. "Yeah, the chip's half scrap. Q's bound to have a better one, anyway."

He goes over to the drawer that he knows holds timeslide maintenance gear and grabs a shiny new telemetry circuit chip.

_~We advise you to be more careful with the module in the future,~_ says Q. _~The materials necessary to make timesliding components are extremely rare and difficult to obtain.~_

"Yeah, no kidding," Nate sighs.

Wade grins again as he pops the fried chip out—Nate takes it and tucks it into a pouch on his belt (smart move; never know when you might need spare timeslide parts, and a faulty chip's better than no chip in a pinch)—and solders the new one into place. He checks all the connections, steps back with a nod. "Good to go."

_~Executing bodyslide by ten to gridsquare 8F.~_

An instant later, they are standing at the intersection where Neena and her team arrived.

"Huh," says Jimmy. "That didn't go at all how I'd expected it to."

Wade gives him a thumbs-up. "All according to Wade's Awesome Plan. You can thank me later. Or…earlier, technically. I'll just wander over here, in case Neena 'n Nate feel like sucking fa—uh, making embarrassing goodbyes." Because if they're planning to suck face, he _definitely_ doesn't want to have to see it (especially after having Bishop throwing a monkey wrench in his sex life for six months on end). So he retreats to a tactful distance and turns away.

Fortunately, no making out ensues.

Nate comes over to talk to him. The conversation passes in a blur of pain, nostalgia, and babbling on Wade's part. But then he remembers that Hope is coming, and the world doesn't look quite so shitty anymore.

"Take care of yourself, Wade," Nate says, shaking Wade's hand. "And keep hoping, all right?"

Yeah, he can do that. He grins. "You had me at 'hello.'"

**.End.**


	8. F473 and the Nature of Coincidences

**warnings:** past slash. talking computers. post-apocalyptic junk. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: g (lol, really?).

**pairing:** implied past Nate/Wade.

**timeline:** starts in 3922, after Nate & Hope leave in **So Long**. ends in 3942, when teen!Hope arrives on the scene (from the Nightmares sequence).

**disclaimer:** marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.

**notes:** 1) sorry, this chapter started out with the express purpose of exposition, and then i got carried away with tangents, and then i cut half of it out and tried again... *SIGH* it meanders a bit, but i think it serves to get us to future!Wade's happy ending while still giving the expository bits i needed. 2) so now you've gotten the Elementary School version of what Eight-ball really is, and your first introduction to the Fate Network. if you think you're lost now, just wait until Eight-ball starts getting past!Wade (present!Wade?) in trouble.

* * *

><p><strong>F-473 and the Nature of Coincidences<strong>

When Nate and his Hope-rescuing cohorts are gone, Wade pulls Eight-ball out again. "So. Got a better idea of when Hope'll be getting back?"

_~Extrapolation in progress…~_

While he waits, Wade starts hiking in the direction of the nearest rebel camp.

_~A locus has formed. Subject designate Hope Wilson WM339 will arrive in the current timeline on the afternoon of March eighteenth, in the year 3942.~_

"Earlier than she was aiming."

_~The death of Stryfe and the timestream anomaly associated with the assignment of Nathan Dayspring Gamma created a minor vacuum which affected any timeslides in this branch. The Quartermaster accounted for the vacuum when providing telemetry information to the timeslide module of subject designate Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma.~_

"Good, good."

He walks at a leisurely pace, stays in plain sight.

A rebel patrol finds him just before sundown. They fire a couple of warning shots at his feet, so he stops and holds his hands up.

"_Dadva_! _Allek sadna'we Stryfe_?"

Ah, Ak'virri.

"Nope," he calls. "Herald of Dayspring. Maybe you've heard of me? I just killed Stryfe."

Big eyes, hushed arguing.

And then the bowing and scraping.

Wade grins. "Back with my peeps. It's good to be the Herald."

It's surprisingly easy, after that, to talk the clan leader into meeting with other rebel groups. After they hear that he killed Stryfe and took over the fortress, everybody seems to want to line up to pay tribute. At that point, he hardly even needs to ask to get them all to relocate to Stryfe's fortress and its environs (plentifully stocked food synthesizers and water purification services probably have a lot to do with it).

Mostly, he lets the tribes keep ruling themselves. Every once in a while, he's asked to preside over some ceremony or other, or to tell stories about Nate and the World-Before, or to sort out some inter-tribal argument. Big whoop.

One day, soon after the tribes have settled in, when people are still showing up from farther reaches of the continent (and in all stages of prolonged rad exposure), Wade goes to the armory. He's poking around for ideas of how to distribute weaponry to the patrols without giving people enough toys to start randomly killing each other (because their numbers really aren't in good enough shape for infighting).

_~Wade Wilson, we have not been entirely forthcoming,~_ Q suddenly says, and it shouldn't be possible for a fairly toneless artificial voice to sound so sheepish.

Wade scoffs. "I figured that part out when you said you were an expert at making 'evasive responses.'"

_~We said that the device we gave you could be called a 'timeline resonance extrapolator.'~_

"Because that's something it could be used for?" he guesses.

_~Indeed.~_

"And what is it, really?"

_~It is a node of F-473, a large, stream-spanning neural network.~_

"Leet fate. I hate it already. 'Stream' as in 'timestream'?"

_~Yes.~_

"How 'large' are we talking?"

_~To date, the network comprises two-hundred and fifty such auxiliary nodes. At a location unknown even to us, the central processing core maintains the timestream database while the nodes calculate, observe, and return findings to it. We were given the blueprint for the node by a keeper of another node nearly a millennium ago, and have needed all this time to gather the materials for manufacturing it. It has served a purpose, but must now be transported to a time in which it can serve further purpose. When we were given the blueprint, we were also given a timestream destination for the node—we require now that you deactivate and hold forth the node.~_

Wade frowns. "Hold up, Q. What exactly does this neural network do? Does it engineer futures? Does it…I dunno, use the timestream branches to draw pictures?"

Silence for a moment. At length, Q speaks again. _~It identifies itself as an entity of timestream maintenance. It ensures the continuity of the timestream to some degree. We assume this means that it 'prunes' unnecessary branches by steering them toward probability loci and steers branches away from such events as the destruction of planet earth.~_

Wade points a finger at the ceiling. "You 'assume'… You do remember that three of you were on the morally questionable side of a superhero civil war, right?"

_~From our own calculations, all timestream branches in which subject designations of Hope Wilson possess the timeline maintenance node lead to her becoming a despotic tyrant not unlike Stryfe. In a phenomenon known as delayed-echo-absorption, the timeline branch would morph into one almost identical to the home timeline of the Prime, Alpha, Delta, and Kappa iterations of Lucas Bishop.~_

"Ew. Evil Hope plus mutant slavery not good."

_~Agreed.~_

"Okay, let's go ahead and…" He pauses in digging it out. "…and send it…back…?"

He remembers.

It had managed to slip his mind in the panic and pain after Hope's departure, obscured by feelings he had shied from and intentionally avoided remembering, but when he really thinks about it, his perfectly functioning brain remembers it with the same crystal clarity as everything else.

Having Eight-ball—a fully-functional _Fate Node_—at the time was the only way he'd saved anyone from the Big One. It was how they'd known where the first flashes were going to go off. It was how they'd known where they'd be safe. It was how they'd known who they could and couldn't save, how they'd known their geniuses were starting to vanish, how they'd known there was worse coming.

It was how they'd known they needed to send Hope forward, and how far.

_A resonant misalignment_, the thing said. Interference from Bishop put an almost-two-thousand-year gap in the intended timeline. Her destiny was no longer in the twenty-first century, but the fortieth.

And his brain hadn't been quite right yet, when it first arrived, and it had led things and people to him that had _fixed_ him.

"I just _happened_ to get it in time to fix my brain and save the world, right?" Wade mutters.

_~Let us not ruminate overlong upon the nature of coincidences, Wade Wilson. It is, perhaps, a subject best left alone by mortal minds.~_

He holds it out.

"Send it back," he says hoarsely. "_Now_."

_~Initiating timeslide.~_

And Eight-ball vanishes from his outstretched palm.

Wade heaves a sigh.

Things are better now, he reminds himself. They were really bad for a while, but they got better, and they would have been worse without Eight-ball, shady and questionable as the thing's origins (and intentions?) might be.

The thought crosses his mind again that he'll have to tell Hope about Nate—but no. No, she must've known what would happen all along. She knew that Nate wouldn't still be around in thirty-nine-whenever, because his control chip was fried and she'd taken the only good telemetry chip they had (the one Q had made, Wade realizes).

All at once, it hurts. It hurts worse than the day Nate died (because Wade couldn't accept it back then, insisted that Nate had managed to timeslide out, that the busted old telemetry circuit would only let him go forward and he was just lost for a little while).

He sits in the middle of the floor, ducks his head, cries.

She was smarter than he was—than he _is_. She'd known all along. _Brave girl_.

Timesliding doesn't work right on Wade, never has, and their cobbled-together sliding module barely had power to take _one_ stringy teenager for _one_ jump.

She'd known she was leaving her parents, that she certainly wouldn't see one of them again and quite possibly wouldn't see the other.

Wade allows himself a moment more for grief and shame and humility. Then he clears his throat and wipes his eyes and gets back to work.

He abuses his powers just a bit to declare a holiday on the day Hope is set to arrive, and he takes an honor guard out to her landing point.

And then, in a swirl of light, she's there. Just a beanpole of a girl whose sleeves are always a little short, red hair cut pixie-style, like Rachel's. Nate's old plasma pistol looks huge in her scrawny hands. When she sees that she's among friends, she practically flings it away and runs to him.

"Daddy!" she cries, and squeezes him so tight he feels a rib crack.

He smiles. "Welcome home, princess."

"I was so worried about you… It must have been so hard, waiting all by yourself for so long."

"Doesn't matter now. Everything's right again."

And it is.

For the first time in more than nineteen centuries, it is.

**.End.**


End file.
